Halcyon, Departing
by PaperRevolution
Summary: AU. England, September 1853. War is brewing overseas; the industrial revolution roils in the cities, and in the small English town of Oakham, nine young boys begin to change and grow in ways beyond their control. Jehan Prouvaire and his friends cannot stay safe inside their halcyon bubble forever, and times are moving faster than any of them - save perhaps fierce, solemn Enjolras -
1. Chapter 1

We find ourselves, reader, in a small town; Oakham. Not auspicious, but with its own sense of muted stateliness nevertheless. There is a church with a spire whose taper pierces the sky quite impressively, and a little colonnade of shops, marching solidly side by side, bracketing a cobbled street. There are schools, also; two for the younger children, and one for the older boys, a particularly well-respected place; a Public School, no less, named for the little town itself. Oakham School is where we are to find our young protagonist, every day until just after five o' clock, when the sky begins to darken and his mother sends Lant in the hansom to retrieve him.

But I am misleading you, I fear, for you see, on the day our story begins, young Prouvaire – a plain John who in an up-stir of youthful fancy has taken to calling himself Jehan – can be found not at school, but in the grand little manor house (little only in comparison to some of its more formidable brethren) that has been home to his family since long before he was born. The manor, all grey stone, arching windows and elaborate cornices, seemed to some of the villagers a small castle. To the Prouvaires, Lord and Lady Oakham and their aforementioned son, however, it was home. Spending more time looking at the house from within than from without, they were more accustomed to its warm fires, oriental rugs and the soft reddish gleam of polished mahogany furnishings, than they were to its less inviting exterior.

Today, the Viscount of Oakham; that is, the senior John Prouvaire, has taken the hansom to the neighbouring village to visit a charity school named Wellwood, of which he is a patron. Wellwood, insofar as the boy Jehan understands, is a place where boys less fortunate than himself, who have no families, or whose families are for whatever reason incapable of caring for them adequately, are sent in lieu of the workhouse, that they might better themselves. Seated by the window in the drawing room, a book open in his lap, Jehan considers this place. He pictures sombre, silent halls and row upon row of desks. Figures in grey, their heads bent, hard at work. A more modest version of his own school, where the students are paler and more worn. He wonders what it might be like to be at such a place. Would it be cold at night? What sort of books would these boys read?

This is what he is thinking of when Vickers, the lady's maid who attends his mother, steps smartly through the open door and says with her usual briskness:

"Master Jehan, your mother says you're to stop dawdling and join her in the parlour. Your aunt and uncle will be here soon."

She sniffs, as though displeased with something – Jehan cannot think what – and leaves without another word. Reluctantly, he closes his book and gets to his feet, following her from the room.

Jehan's mother is a small woman – her son owes his rather diminutive stature to her – with bright eyes and a pointed little nose. Her fingers work busily at the pillowslip she is embroidering, and she looks up only for a moment as the boy enters and takes a chair diagonally across from hers.

"What have you been reading?" inquires the Lady of the house in such a mild tone that Jehan sees instantly, with no surprise, that Vickers had exaggerated her mistress' impatience.

"Only poems," he gives her a small smile, but does not elaborate. They are not 'only' poems; not to him, but his mother likes to read, but only novels, and she would not be able to tell Blake from Byron.

Lady Oakham looks up again, fondly. "I do wish your father hadn't picked today to visit Wellwood," she murmurs, "He's sure to be late for dinner."

This is not the heart of the matter, Jehan knows. His mother is more anxious about what her sister will think of Lord Oakham's absence. Jehan's aunt, genial though she is, is nothing if not a gossip-monger; he knows this, with the surprising perceptiveness of a quiet boy who will speak volubly when called upon; when impassioned, but who for the most part is content just to listen.

His mother mistakes his silence for melancholy, the way mothers are often wont to do. "Are you not happy about the prospect of having your cousin close by?"

Jehan nods, affecting eagerness as best he can. It isn't that he dislikes Cousin George. It is just that he knows him only marginally, he feels. At school, he calls him Bahorel, and Cousin George calls him Prouvaire, and that is how they have come to know one another.

Moreover – and this, he does not want to admit to himself – George Bahorel is the sort of boy Jehan ought to be. He plays cricket; he's often the instigator of bouts of fisticuffs in the schoolyard; he's obstreperous in the most winning manner possible. Bahorel is admired. Not revered, like Jehan's friend, Enjolras, but admired nevertheless. Jehan, puny Jehan with his books and his exemption from Games and his little bottle of foul-smelling emergency medicine, cannot hope to compete. And now that they are to live so near, surely Jehan's mother and his aunt will lose no time in beginning to compare the boys. To voice any of this would be absurd; akin almost to jealousy, so he holds his silence.

"Almost five o' clock," observes his mother, "We had better go out to meet them. They'll be here soon enough."

She rises, setting down her needlework, and Jehan, putting down his book, follows suit. This moment, now, filled with anticipation and unease – for the arrival of his cousin; for the coming school year – in equal parts, is what it is to be fourteen and affluent, languishing and accepting. He hopes for something to change, and all the while he fears it.

**-o0o0o00o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-**

"The boys are disciplined adequately," a portly schoolmaster assures Lord John Prouvaire, Viscount of Oakham. Mister Bragg, for that is the schoolmaster's name, bobs up and down on the balls of his feet, hands clasped tightly behind his back. The buttons of his shirt strain ominously.

The pair of them stand in a vast hall. In its vastness, and that alone, it is not unlike the hall envisioned that same day by Lord Oakham's son. There is a damp smell in the air, however – sharp and heavy; musty and fetid – that Jehan failed to imagine. The boys' clothes hang loose as rags, and, though they do indeed hunch over slates, the atmosphere is one of fear rather than industriousness.

"They are given three meals a day," Mister Bragg presses on, "Before each of which they're expected to give thanks to God. There're also prayers after morning victuals."

Lord Oakham nods gravely. A tall man with a thick head of red-gold hair, a pair of wide-set blue eyes and an air of ineffable gravity, Jehan's father wields authority in a manner that Jehan knows he himself could never hope to achieve. He listens to Bragg's bleating, but it is quite plain from the intent look in his light eyes that he doubts the truth of what the other man is telling him.

Presently, however, a noise from the hall beyond attracts his attention. A boy is sitting very upright in his seat, his hand raised to beg a question. Another schoolmaster – this one taller; almost as tall as Lord Oakham, whose long, narrow nose and close-set eyes give him a somewhat weaselly appearance – abruptly halts in his pacing about the room to look at the boy.

"What is it?" he demands, and the boy lowers his arm hesitantly and leans forward slightly in his seat.

"It says here that all men are created equal," the boy says. His voice is quiet, and yet it carries. Lord Oakham can hear him perfectly. "But that en't – I mean, that isn't true. If we're all equal, how come some of us got to be... How come some of us must be servants and get told what to do by other men? That's not equal. So... either God's a liar, or people en't – I mean, aren't following his will."

There is a sharp intake of breath from both schoolmasters. A handful of boys dare to look up.

"Get up," the weaselly schoolmaster's voice is very quiet.

The boy, clearly trying to keep from trembling, obeys, emerging from behind his desk and, knock-kneed with knowing dread, approaching the schoolmaster.

"Kneel," commands the schoolmaster.

Having no choice, his hapless pupil complies, shoulders tensed. The schoolmaster retrieves from its place against the wall behind him a long, dully gleaming cane.

The first strike on the boy's back makes his body jerk reflexively, but he makes no sound. He bears his blows in silence as down they rain, the other boys looking on in an unabashed tumult of horrified pity and relief that they are not the ones kneeling on the cold floor. The boy bites his knuckles to mute his cries, but after a time, he can bear it no longer and a strangled noise breaks from him. The boy gulps in a frantic breath as the cane descends again.

"Stop!" Lord Oakham calls out. His greatcoat billows stiffly as he moves toward schoolmaster and student. The scene is some grotesque oil painting, the man with his cane suspended, face stretched taut; the boy doing his best to stifle a sob, head ducked, thin arms wrapped about his knees.

What Lord Oakham does next surprises everyone present.

"What's your name, boy?" he asks of the huddled figure. The head bobs up fractionally in surprise, but aside from that, the lad stays immobile. He is around the age of Lord Oakham's own son, perhaps; it is difficult to say. Brown hair, unkempt and much in need of cutting, hangs in his face.

Barely audible, the boy mumbles a reply.

Lord Oakham looks down at the pitiful creature. "It's alright," he says, "I'm not here to hurt you. Tell me your name."

This time, the boy looks up properly. His hazel eyes are huge in a hollow-cheeked face. His lips are chapped, and there is an angry welt above his right eye. He looks both younger and older than Jehan.

"Henry Feuilly," says the boy in a little voice like dry leaves.

"And are you punished in this way often, Henry Feuilly?"

The boy's eyes are rounder than ever. "Y- n – yeh- Sometimes," he concedes finally, returning to staring at the floor.

"I am sorry, my Lord," Mr Bragg tells Oakham, "Feuilly asks too many questions."

Lord Oakham holds up a hand, appearing to think for a moment. Then:

"We are, you know, in need of a hallboy," says he at length, "How would you like to come and work for me, young Mister Feuilly?"

The boy stares.

"Lord Oakham," Bragg splutters, "You cannot mean-"

Oakham's reply is grave. "I mean precisely what I say, Mister Bragg. I cannot, of course, help all of the boys here; not directly. But I wish to give this boy a chance, if it is his wish to take it."

**-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-**

"Really, Grace, this is divine!"

"Oh, don't thank me; give your compliments to our cook. She did all the hard work."

Jehan's aunt Lucetta loves to gush almost as much as she loves to gossip. Already, she has complimented the Prouvaires on a lamp in the drawing room, the wallpaper in the dining room, the quality of Lady Oakham's gown, and now the evening meal. Cousin George catches Jehan's eye, looking bored, discontented and restive.

More wine is poured. "How do you like the new house?" Lady Oakham enquires, "I hope you'll settle in well. The journey was painless, I hope?"

Mister Bahorel; Jehan's uncle, laughs heartily. "Oh, as painless as could be expected," he rumbles, "But we're here, now. We ought to make the best of it."

The disgruntled look on George's face shows Jehan exactly what he thinks of that idea.

Jehan keeps feeling as though his cousin is about to make some rude interruption, but he never does, and so Jehan is never able to make up his mind precisely how he feels about that idea. Cousin George is uncouth, so say most of the adults, and yet he is looked upon with a sort of nostalgic affection, as though he somehow reminds all present of their younger days. This makes Jehan curious, abstractedly, to see what the adults might say, were George to make one of his loud, unthinking remarks. But people, as we have learnt from Lord Oakham, rarely do what is expected of them, and so George Bahorel remains grudgingly silent. He positively seethes with that silence, shovelling food ferociously into his mouth. His mother gives him a languorous, vague smile and then returns to what she is saying. Jehan wishes fervently for the evening to draw to its close. He counts to ten, and then back down again, thinking that perhaps, by the time he has finished counting, it might be time at least for dessert.

He is placing down his knife and fork, unable to eat another bite, when the dining room door opens and Lant, the butler, ushers Lord Oakham into the room. The first footman draws back his seat, but Jehan's father, before sitting, clears his throat and says cordially:

"Oh, hello, Lucetta; Matthew – why, George, how much older you look! I hope you have been made quite welcome. My apologies for the delay. Grace, I have found us another hallboy, name of Feuilly. I think he will serve us quite well."

Tutting, Jehan's mother shakes her head. "That is what you have been doing with yourself? Looking for servants! Haven't we quite enough to be going along with? Well, do sit down, won't you? You've held us up quite enough."

She speaks with the brisk, feigned aggravation of wives, and her husband, true to his role, does his best to look sheepish and contrite. The footman pours wine for Lord Oakham, and the adults proceed to discuss various important people from London, and the impending possibility of a war in the Ottoman Islands. Jehan half-listens. He is thinking, you see, of two days from now, when school will begin again and he will apply himself to copybooks and Latin and Greek; when he will be reunited, after the long summer, with the friends he had made the previous year. He is not thinking of canes or beatings or war or debt; he carries the weight of neither the old nor the undermined. His troubles exist, for no one is ever entirely without troubles, but they are a child's pains. He is, for all intents and purposes, still a child. Fourteen, and waiting in the wings for the world to lift him up and do what it will with him.


	2. Chapter 2

On weekday mornings, having been deposited at the gates of Oakham School by the dutiful Lant, our young protagonist ceases to be Jehan and becomes Prouvaire. It is an important distinction to note, for where Jehan is perennially taciturn, Prouvaire, stimulated by the enquiring young minds of his friends, becomes lively; passionate, even. At home, Jehan is cosseted (添ou mustn't coddle the boy so,his grandmother has been known to tell his mother on more than one occasion). At school, though he is often made mockery of for his small, reedy frame and studious, faraway nature, he is also called upon to give opinions; pulled into the sort of discussions at once both lively and weighty that his father partakes of with his dinner guests, and that is refreshing. It awakes in him a sort of excitement both nervous and unabashed.

To understand Jehan's position at the school, we must first understand that there has always existed a sort of rivalry between the day pupils and boarders of Oakham. The day pupils, generally, are boys whose parents can ill afford to pay the extra fees required for boarding, and as such, the boarders are inclined to look down on the day boys for being from more modest backgrounds. The day pupils, in turn, see the boarders as being a priggish bunch. Jehan, being a day pupil and also the son of the Viscount, does not fit properly into either category. During his first term at the school, he was constantly pushed about; pelted with bits of chalk and small stones when the teachers were not looking; called a 菟recious little mummy's boy Additionally, he had on more than one occasion been chastised by the schoolmasters themselves for 渡ot paying attention- for sometimes, in the middle of a class, Jehan's attention would be caught by some small wonder outside the window and his attention would wander. One Mr Harding, in particular, found this infuriating, and had once made him wear the Dunce's Cap for an entire afternoon, because he failed to answer a question directed at him.

In short, his first few months at the school were miserable. Fortune favoured him, however, one late November afternoon, when one of the older boys happened to see him being taunted quite mercilessly by a small group, also all older than himself.

The older boy happened to be a Prefect, but unlike most of the other Prefects, he was well-liked. His name was Enjolras. He was a tall, angular boy with an abundance of pale gold hair and a face that could only be described as _regal,_ with a strong, aquiline nose and high forehead. He looked proud, and indeed he was, but it was pride of a strident, and not haughty, sort. He had a curious mixture of authority and magnetism; a fierce nature, both driven and driving, which drew others to him. The other boys rallied around Enjolras; they drank in his every word. Jehan, up until that afternoon, had never spoken to him.

Enjolras, who had been walking briskly across the quad, paused in his tracks to look at the huddle of boys a little way to his left. He perceived that one of the boys, a deal smaller than the others, was shaking his head at something and looking almost desperate. His attention thus captured by the scene, Enjolras could not miss the way one of the larger boys shoved the young Prouvaire so forcefully that he fell down on the cobbled ground. The others crowed with laughter, and Enjolras changed direction and strode towards them.

Jehan would not easily forget the way the other boy had looked, his mouth set in a grim line; his step purposeful and sure. A light flush had crept up on Enjolras' cheeks; perhaps the chill of the November day; perhaps the fervour of righteous indignation.

"Good afternoon,said Enjolras, presently; curtly, and his schoolfellows froze.

"Hello, Enjolras,returned the tallest boy, 展e were just stopping to help Prouvaire. He fell, you see."

Enjolras' eyes narrowed. 泥o you think I'm blind, Keswick?he asked the other boy, 的 saw you push him."

Keswick tilted his chin defiantly upwards. 展hat if I did?"

If he had expected to elicit a rise out of Enjolras, he would have been wrong, for the other boy's face was quite impassive. 鄭pologise to Prouvaire,he told the unfortunate Keswick, 鄭nd leave him alone from now on, unless you'd like me to speak to Mister Needham about your conduct. I doubt Mister Needham wants thugs on his cricket team, don't you?"

Keswick's face reddened. 鄭ll right,he muttered. He jerked a glance at Jehan, who by now had got to his feet and was staring down at the cobbles on which he had fallen as though he wished they might open up and swallow him. 鉄orry, Prouvaire."

And perhaps that would have been the end of that, had Enjolras not leant down to pick up a book Jehan had dropped.

"Jean-Jacques Rousseau,said Enjolras, peering at the frontspiece. 滴ave you read his _Emile?_"

Cautiously, Jehan had shaken his head.

Enjolras returned his book to him. 溺y friend Combeferre; maybe you know him, he's the Hawthorne prefect, and you're in Hawthorne, aren't you? - has a copy he might lend you, if you'd like. In fact,and here, Enjolras paused, as though a thought had just occurred to him, 撤erhaps you'd like to come and sit with us? Prefects are expected to sit together for lunch, but we're often joined by other boys."

That was how Jehan came to know Enjolras, and to sit with him and his companions every lunchtime thereafter. School, instead of being something he dreaded, became something he rather looked forward to.

And these are the circumstances in which we find him at present happy, for the most part. Still on the receiving end of jibes and prods from some of the other boys, but far less concerned by them, now. It is far easier to ignore one's enemies when one has friends to confide in, or simply to forget oneself with.

Today's lunchtime finds Jehan seated between Combeferre and a cheerful, rather rakish sort of boy named Courfeyrac. The latter having enquired after Bahorel's circumstances (的 say, Prouvaire, why doesn't your cousin board here any more, d'you know?, Jehan is wondering how much he can appropriately tell his friends.

He settles, in the end, for innocence. 的 don't know,he says, and hopes the lie is quite convincing enough, 添ou're friendly with him, aren't you? Ask him yourself."

Another boy; a lean, hard-faced youth with stringy dark hair, laughs dryly. 展ell said, Prouvaire,says he, whose name is Grantaire.

Jehan scans the hall in search of his cousin, but Bahorel has already left to partake of a particularly rough game of football played with an old cricket-glove in lieu of a ball out in the schoolyard. Quiet and unobtrusive as he is, Jehan is often privy to his parents' discussions without them truly realising it, and he knows the details of the Bahorel family's situation far better than he lets on. In truth, his uncle's gambling has driven the family into debts that they could only pay off by selling their London home and moving to a smaller place, and one nearer to their son's school so that they would no longer have to pay for his boarding there. As for how this intense period of upheaval has actually affected his cousin, Jehan can only guess, but he cannot imagine that it will have been at all easy for the other boy.

"Did you go with your father into the city, Combeferre?Enjolras inquires presently, snapping Jehan out of his reverie. Combeferre, a bespectacled boy who, despite being only sixteen years old, reads in the same classes as Enjolras, nods, his expression turning grave.

"Gaskell does not exaggerate her descriptions of the mills,he responds, and though his voice is calm; measured, something approaching distress sparks in his brown eyes. 典he conditions those people are expected to work in... There was a child a little girl,his voice trembles ever so slightly, 努hose hair caught in one of the machines she was crawling under to get hold of bits of cotton. She was screaming and it tore out her hair, and half her scalp with it, and no one did a thing. Scared, they were, of the overseer. Father was incensed, but he wouldn't say anything. When I asked him why, he said it doesn't pay to get involved with things like that; there will always be other children suffering in the same way, no matter what we do."

Enjolras stiffens. 添our father ought to imagine how he might feel if he'd not the connections and the wherewithal to earn good money, and his own children had to go and work in the factories and mills. Would he be so eager to keep his silence if you were injured? No, I am sure he wouldn't."

"He might,says Combeferre mildly, 鉄ome men do not speak out no matter how hard they are pushed."

Jehan follows this exchange with a sort of horrified interest. Courfeyrac, on his other side, chimes in:

"If I'd been your father, Combeferre, I'd have walked over to that overseer and given him a good rap on the head with my cane."

At this, Jehan cannot help laughing a little, but Enjolras and Combeferre are sombre.

"You'd have started a brawl in a factory?Enjolras raises his eyebrows. 鄭nd achieved what, exactly?"

Courfeyrac laughs. 的'd have achieved a black eye and a bloody nose for that awful overseer,he replies, 典hat'd teach him, wouldn't it?"

Enjolras is shaking his head, but it's Grantaire who says wryly:

"Oh, yes, I'm sure your little set-to would teach him to mend his ways, Courfeyrac. I'm sure he'd be a changed man. There's absolutely no conceivable way he could go back to behaving just as before the moment you'd gone, is there?He laughs humourlessly, resting his elbows on the table in what Jehan's mother would call a most untoward manner. 典here's no way to deal with people like that."

"I disagree,Enjolras counters, bluntly, 典here are ways. Brawling with overseers is not one of them, but there are ways. There are unions; you've heard of the strikes?"

"And what do they prove?"

"They give people a voice."

"But the masses -"

"You shouldn't call them that, Grantaire. That's the sort of word my father would use."

"It's the sort of word _everyone _uses. You ought to get used to it."

Enjolras flings up his hands in frustration. The shrill bell chimes, signalling the end of lunchtime, and Jehan gathers up his books with thoughts of factories and workers' strikes and screaming, injured children jostling for attention in his mind.

**-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-**

Some two miles away and some hours later at Oakham House, Mrs Bagshaw, the Prouvaires' cook, is feeling quite out of temper. In the first place, Mrs Bagshaw, a solid-looking woman in her mid sixties at least, is not fond of change. And secondly, this particular change has come in the shape of a particularly small and scrawny fourteen-year-old boy who, the cook believes, will be far more of a hindrance than a help.

"No disrespect to the master, an' all,says she, slamming down a mixing bowl on the table in front of her and beginning to pummel the eggs inside it with ferocity, 釘ut bless me if I know what 'e was thinkin', gettin' that little scrap of a thing to work for 'im."

Nellie, the scullery maid, nods sagely. 泥'you know, Missus Bagshaw, I'd not be surprised if 'e starts tryin' ter steal food from the pantry, I wouldn't. 'E doesn't look like 'e's 'ad a good meal in a while."

"I'm not a thief."

The women spin on their heels almost simultaneously at the voice from the doorway. The little newcomer, Henry Feuilly, stands scarlet with humiliated, hurt indignation. Realising he has spoken out of turn, he ducks his head, as is his habit, but, even whilst staring at the floor, ploughs on resolutely, 鄭nd I'll work hard, I will. I en't going to let Lord Oakham regret letting me work here. He's done a good thing for me, he has, and I won't repay him by stealing from him."

"Oh, fancy yerself a little gentleman, do yer?Mrs Bagshaw says tartly, recovering herself. 展ell, yer won't get in the master's good graces just by makin' nice. 'Ere, 'e'll be wanting 'is afternoon tea, soon. You can take it up to 'im in the library. 'E likes to 'ave a cuppa while 'e works, does the bustles around the table, humming to herself in vicious, staccato bursts. A cup, teapot, milk-jug, sugar-bowl and a plate of biscuits come clattering onto a tray. 鄭n' you watch yerself with that. That's good china, that is; it don't want breakin' by clumsy boys."

And with that, she turns her back on him resolutely and resumes beating the eggs.

For a moment, the boy hovers uncertainly in the doorway. Then:

"Get on with yer, Feuilly,says Nellie, not unkindly, 敵o on. The teapot don't bite."

So he steps forward and, gingerly, picks up the tea tray. Nellie grins at him as he retreats.

"See yer later, Feuilly,she says, 鉄orry fer callin' yer a thief."

At this, he is taken aback. S'alright,he mumbles, backing out of the room and going up the servants' stairway as quickly as he dares. The china clinks ominously.

The Prouvaires' home is, as we have said, not especially large as manor houses go, but to Feuilly, it seems enormous. Having known for years only the blank, grey walls of Wellwood, he is overwhelmed by the sheer sumptuousness of this house; the abundance of colour here, a splash of blue; there, a hint of deep orange, surprising and vivid. So many things draw his gaze that he does not know where to look, and several times already, he has had to remind himself not to dawdle. With the tray in his hands, though, he is obliged to be careful, and so not without a twinge of guilt allows himself to take a little longer in reaching the library, even stopping for a moment on the stairs to admire an oil painting depicting a family picnicking beneath a leafy bower. The detail on the child's bonnet is masterful, and he has to shake himself mentally, saying to himself, _you are not here to look at pictures; you are here to do a job, and if you don't do it, you'll be thrown out onto the streets, and it'll be your own fault, it will._

Thus chastened, he continues up the stairs and turns onto a wide landing. The carpet is thick and springy underfoot, and there are more pictures on the walls. Upon his arrival here, the housekeeper, Mrs Maberly, took to him with a rough cloth and some hard, sour-smelling soap, deaf to his protests (mercifully, he had kept his trousers on, rolled up to the knees, but the ragged shirt had come off at Maberly's insistence 展e don't have grubby people in this house,- and he had heard the soft, sharp intake of her breath at the latticework of scars criss-crossing his back) but even so, suddenly he feels very grubby indeed, and it is with great reluctance that he carefull shoulders open the library door.

Only to find that the library is quite, quite empty.

Cautiously, he moves further into the room and places the tea-tray on a table. He has every intention of turning around and leaving straightaway, but the books oh! - he has never seen so many books in his life. The shelves stretch from floor to ceiling, row upon row of books, some bound with leather, others with silk; some with gold words embossed upon the spine, others with silver. He lets out a small sound somewhere between a sigh and a gasp. _If I lived here, _he thinks, _really lived here; say for instance, if I was the master's son, I'd sit in here all day and read. _But he cannot comprehend even the notion of having all those books at his disposal; it is like the most ludicrous dream, and yet here they all are, just in front of him. He could reach out his hand and pick one out, this very instant, if he chose to! There is a headiness to the idea; an intoxicating sense of possibility, as though the whole world can be reached from this room. As though he might know anything and everything; might no longer be ignorant; might no longer be little and useless and insignificant.

And so, hardly knowing what he is doing, Feuilly takes another halting step forward and reaches out to take a book from the nearest shelf.

Its pages are very smooth and the colour of palest butter. It is Mr Dickens' _The Pickwick Papers_, and Feuilly has never read a novel before, though his grandmother used to, he thinks.

He takes a small but very _aware _sort of breath; the sort of breath one takes when preparing oneself for something very important. And he reads:

"_The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obsc- obscu- obscuri-"_

He is so busy struggling over the word obscurity, quite furious with himself because he should _know _this word, that he does not hear the opening of the door, nor notice the quiet footsteps of another boy entering the room, until a quiet voice asks: 展hat are you doing?and poor Feuilly, so taken by surprise, promptly drops _The Pickwick Papers _onto the carpeted floor.

**-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0 o-**

This, Jehan supposes, must be the new hallboy his father spoke about. But he does not look like any hallboy Jehan has ever seen before. Firstly, he has never seen a hallboy appear remotely interested in books not, he realises too late, that he has ever given too much thought to what sort of things servant boys might be interested in and this boy was quite clearly engrossed in whatever he was reading before Jehan interrupted him. And secondly -

Secondly, this boy looks like something from a novel; from one of Dickens' himself, perhaps. He is precariously thin; a tangle of angular, brittle limbs, and his eyes are very large and full of what can only be panic. He is frozen; only his eyes move, darting from the spread pages of the fallen book, to Jehan, and back again. Finally, he breaks the hush that has fallen between them with what Jehan immediately terms an outpouring of words.

"I didn't mean ter to, I mean, I didn't mean to I wouldnt've dropped it only you made me jump oh! I'm not sayin' it's your fault, mind, it's my fault really, only I didn't mean anything by it I just wanted to have a look there was no one in here I was bringing tea - here, he gestures helplessly towards the tray on the nearby table, for the mater, you see. But he wasn't here so, well I en't never seen I haven't never I oh I haven't ever seen so many books before and I well I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, and I didn't mean to drop it! Don't tell yer father,he finishes desperately, 典hem women in the kitchen the cook and the other one they was right about me; I've only gone and ruined things already."

His shoulders slump. He lowers his head again, blinking rapidly, furiously biting his lip in an effort to hold back tears. Jehan has never seen such a frantic, wretched boy.

"It's all right,he says after a moment, trying to adopt the measured, even voice Combeferre uses when one of the younger boys has got himself into a scrape, 的t's all right, I won't tell Father, though I don't think he'd be very angry with you, anyway. Here,he moves to pick up the fallen book, and the boy flinches visibly. Jehan's throat constricts a little; he feels himself on the brink of feeling something that will change him, though of course, he does not know it, or know even how to describe it. He picks up the book, smooths out the pages and returns it to its proper place.

Remembering Enjolras picking up his own book the previous year, an idea comes to him. 的 can bring you books, if you like,he tells the boy, who stares at him in mute surprise. Jehan goes on, 擢ather has so many books, he wouldn't notice if a few were to be misplaced for a while. You can give the ones you've finished back to me every time I bring you new ones,swept up on this new notion, he continues excitedly, 撤erhaps you might tell me what you think of the books, after you've read them? I do like to talk about books, but most of my friends are older, and cleverer I think, than me, and sometimes I feel terribly stupid talking about that sort of thing to them."

The other boy is still staring at him, his panic giving way to bewilderment. 添ou you don't want I mean you want to lend me books?"

Jehan nods earnestly.

"Why?"

This question takes him quite by surprise. 展ell,says Jehan thoughtfully, 的 don't know. I suppose because you want to read, and nobody else is reading them, so you might as well. What is your name, again? Father did say, but I forgot."

"Feuilly,says the boy, and it does not occur to Jehan, who has spent his day being Prouvaire, to wonder why the servant boy does not even bother to give him his Christian name. 釘ut... I still don't understand... why're you helping me?"

To this, the only answer Jehan can provide is, 展ell. Er. It's what people do. Or, what they're supposed to do."

For some moments, Feuilly seems to think about this. The sky outside the window is darkening, throwing his face into shadow and making his eyes gleam. Jehan removes _The Pickwick Papers _from its shelf again and hands it over to Feuilly. Among his friends, he has always been the smallest, but he and Feuilly, he notes, are almost the same height.

"Take it,he says, at the other boy's hesitation, and smiles, 的t isn't a trick. Really. I ought to find candles for you, too, so you can read in the night. I can -"

And then, shrill and bell-like from downstairs, the voice of Mrs Maberly, ringing: 擢euilly! Feuilly, where have you got to? You're to light the lamps in the hall and the smoking room! _Feuilly!"_

"Got to go,says Feuilly apologetically, already making for the door, 典hank you. I can't I mean just... Thank you."

And then he is gone, and Jehan, staring after him, is suddenly wondering what it might be like to be the sort of boy who shrinks back as though expecting to be struck, simply for dropping a book.


	3. Chapter 3

The sky is scarcely beginning to lighten when Jehan Prouvaire, still blinking the last remnants of sleep from his eyes, slips out of his room, along the broad corridor and out of the little door at its end, into the servants' stairwell. The treasure he bears is a smallish, brown leather-bound book bearing upon its spine, in faint gold lettering, the words: _Reveries of a Solitary Walker. _You might note, reader, that this work is by the same Jean-Jacques Rousseau over whom Enjolras and Jehan's rather unlikely camaraderie had begun. This is not a coincidence; Jehan has a notion, young as he is, that he might perhaps try to be for Henry Feuilly what Enjolras has been to him.

His knock upon Feuilly's door is soft. A moment passes, and then footsteps patter on the floor and the door opens inwards to reveal the other boy who, although blear-eyed with sleep, is not quite as wan a figure as he had been upon first arriving, Jehan would like to think.

"Good morning, Feuilly," he proffers the book, and Feuilly, taking it from him, gives him a small smile. "What did you think of Blake's poems?" There are times, still, when he finds himself not a little unsure of what to say to the quiet, solemn-eyed servant boy, and at such times as these, Jehan returns always to the one common thing they share: books.

Feuilly appears to consider this for a moment. Then: "I think... they look simple, they do – I mean, they're not difficult ter read, are they? - but they're not simple, really. They're -" he makes a vague, expansive gesture with one arm, casting about for the right words to say. "They're meant ter make people see the truth," is what he finally settles for, and Jehan considers this. He has thought of the stark, clear beauty of Blake's poetry before, but never has he thought much about its _truth._

Observing his pensive expression, Feuilly turns and hastens to retrieve the book from where it lies – an old habit – secreted away beneath his mattress. Turning pages with fervent urgency, he finds the place he wants and all but thrusts the book into Jehan's hands. The other boy, in some surprise, looks down at the familiar words, and reads:

"_Is this a holy thing to see,  
In a rich and fruitful land,  
Babes reducd to misery,  
Fed with cold and usurous hand?_

_Is that trembling cry a song?  
Can it be a song of joy?  
And so many children poor?  
It is a land of poverty!..."_

And on, for two more stanzas, it goes.

"Trembling cry a song..." Jehan murmurs to himself, still reading, more slowly than is usual for him. Those words; always, always they make him think of a small bird; querulous and futile thing.

"Sometimes they – sometimes people -" Feuilly falters, trying to find an adequate explanation. It is not, you see, that he does not know what to say; rather that in his mind, there still exists a line that he is very much afraid of crossing. Is it worth giving voice to these thoughts, when he will surely get into trouble for them? "Never mind," he says finally, and Jehan, who has always been rather a sensitive sort of boy in regard to nuances of feeling, detects in his voice a sort of hollowness. Not bitterness or resignation, but a reluctant submission of sorts. "It doesn't much matter."

And Jehan shakes his head. "Oh, it does," he says, and with a furtive glance over his shoulder, steps properly into the room, feeling, as he does so, a protracted sense of guilt that he is worried what his mother might think, if she knew him to be mixing with servants. "Tell me. Only if you want to, I mean, but I _should _like to hear it."

"Well," rejoins Feuilly cautiously, "Mister Blake's poem – it makes me think of one o' the schoolmasters at Wellwood, you see. Everyone said Mister Bragg – that was his name – was a God-fearing man, and you could believe it, too, except... except you couldn't help but wonder (I mean, well, I couldn't, anyway) how any God could want the kind of world Mister Bragg likes ter live in, where order is more important than kindness and control is more important than equality. And Mister Blake's poem, it makes me think that maybe I weren't – maybe I wasn't wrong after all. Maybe it really _is _wrong, and I'm – we're – not being punished by God for anything."

There is a careful hope in him, now; somehow, it makes Jehan feel terribly sad.

"Of course you aren't being punished," is all he can think of to say, in the end. "You haven't done anything wrong." And he doesn't know this, not really, but suddenly he is quite certain of it.

Feuilly is thinking about this when Mrs Maberly's voice, filled with the characteristic impatience, sounds from just outside the door. "Hurry up, boy!" she calls out, rapping her knuckles upon the wood, "What's keeping you? The house won't wait forever, you know!"

They hear her muttering to herself as her footsteps retreat.

"You'd better wait until everyone's gone off upstairs," Feuilly tells Jehan, "You don't want them seeing you." He says it so matter-of-factly, and it is such a direct echo of Jehan's earlier thought, that a pang goes through him. Is he truly ashamed of his friendship with Feuilly? Oughtn't he not to care, what people think? The fact that he cannot do that makes a curious, hot feeling stir inside him and he realises that for the first time in his short life, he is truly angry with himself. _You are a coward, Jehan Prouvaire,_ he chastises himself silently as Feuilly leaves, shutting the door behind him, _you're a coward. You're like Combeferre's father, you are._

It is with a heavy heart and a ringing mind that Jehan, a few minutes later, climbs the stairs, telling himself fruitlessly that he does not care a straw about being seen. What sort of person is he, that it is so difficult to convince himself that there is no _shame _in being friends with a servant boy? _After all, _he thinks, _where is the harm in it? He is just the same as me. In fact, he is probably a good deal wiser than I am._

**-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-**

The small, blue book of Blake's verse sits in Jehan's satchel until lunchtime, whereupon he takes it out and begins again to peruse it. He intends to re-read the poems; to look at them in a new light, but he finds he cannot focus his mind upon them for long.

"Do you think a person can help being a coward?" he asks Enjolras, now, studiously avoiding his gaze, "I mean, do you think a cowardly man can change his ways?"

Enjolras considers, briefly. "I believe we are born cowards," he says, "We make ourselves brave."

This makes Jehan stare. It seems to him that Enjolras is the wisest; the most immovable boy of his age that he has ever met, and there is no one else like him. His face, even now, is inscrutable; Jehan, who is usually quite good at guessing what people are feeling, has no notion of it, with Enjolras.

"I disagree," says Combeferre, not particularly disagreeably, "I think _life _makes a man brave or cowardly. He is neither at birth. And I do not think it is necessarily a person's fault, if they are cowardly or fearful. Some have different inclinations than others; that is all. People can't all be the same."

Grantaire snorts. "Pshaw," he says, "All men are cowards, whether they think they are or not."

Jehan is pondering this in some confusion – now he does not know quite what to think – when Courfeyrac approaches them, his expression uncharacteristically solemn. Upon reaching them the brief hesitation he makes before speaking is equally unlike him.

"Combeferre," he says, "Mister Elme wants to see you in his office, directly."

And Combeferre looks at first startled, then bewildered, and finally uncertain. He is not the sort of boy to attract trouble; he is moderate and kind and calm; enquiring, yes, but not fiercely inquisitive. What could he have done wrong?

The others watch quietly as he puts away his things and gets to his feet. Only Grantaire seems unperturbed.

"Fifty lines, Combeferre," he says with a smirk, "'_I must write shorter and less meandering essays'._"

Nobody laughs.

**-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-**

Charles Combeferre has only visited the Headmaster's office upon two occasions. Once, upon his induction to the school; a second time, with Enjolras and six other boys, to receive the shiny blue Prefect's badge which is now pinned to the lapel of his jacket. Both of these times, of course, he had been well aware of what he was doing there.

This is an altogether different experience. Although the enormous mahogany desk and the intricate, if lurid tapestry of the battle of Hastings on the wall behind it are the same, the room's atmosphere is now less impressive and more simply forbidding. Combeferre tries to tell himself that he is being absurd, but he isn't altogether successful in the attempt (that is, he does indeed manage to _tell _himself this; what he does not quite manage is to _believe _it).

The grave expression on Mr Elme's face hardly helps. Mr Elme is a rather large and portentous man with a sleek, greying beard and a pair of dark, dark eyes that might once have been keen but now most often bear a look that can only be described as _torpid_. Today, however, he seems unusually _present._

"You are one of our most promising students, you know," Elme says weightily, "We expect quite great things from you; you be assured of that, young man. We are all on your side."

"Thank you, sir," replies Combeferre, not at all reassured. Mr Elme, he realises with a sort of painful presentiment, is only trying to soften the blow that is to come. He knows, too, what the nature of this blow will be. But he does not ask. He waits. This, he thinks; this is _his _cowardice. He is afraid to know the truth, and all that it will entail. And it is a childish, futile fear, for not knowing the truth does not make it any less true.

"It pains me to tell you -" and here it is; the inescapable, "-that your sister, Amelia, is very ill again. She has taken quite a turn for the worst. Your father asked that you return home immediately."

That is that, then. Mother will cry and curse and fret and rock herself gently, rhythmically to and fro; Father will shake his head and do nothing. Thomas and Isabel will not understand, and he will not have the heart to tell them. And if – if, this time, Amelia is to die – what then? How will his mother bear it, and how will his father bear his mother?

And would it really be so wrong for Mother – gentle, abiding Mother – to fall to pieces? To mourn the loss of her second child and first daughter? Amelia, who has looked upon the world with wondering eyes; who reminds him a little of Prouvaire in her unexpected reserves of resilience; her unabashed love of the world. The world is full of injustices, and they are not all Man's doing.

"Thank you, sir," he says again, and his voice is tight. Slowly, as though afraid of what might happen were he to move too quickly, he rises from the high-backed chair. His hands are trembling a little, and he has to clasp them tightly behind his back. "I'll go and pack my things."

It is not, he knows, the proper, respectful way to take his leave of the Headmaster, but it will have to do. It is all he can do not to simply bolt from the room.

Out in the cool corridor, with its high, vaulted ceilings, he struggles to collect himself. _You must not get yourself into a state. Mother will be beside herself and Father will not know what to do. They'll need you. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, you are like Grantaire! This is absurd._

On and on, in this way, he continues, until he reaches the dormitory. It is only there, kneeling by his bed and stuffing books into an impressive oak trunk that had before been his father's, that his shoulders begin to shake and he drops his head into his hands. It is ridiculous to cry when he does not even yet know what will become of Amelia, but now will be his only chance to do so. Here, in the silence of the empty dormitory, his grief is not selfish. It stirs nothing and moves no one. At home, surrounded by a different sort of silence, it will only make things worse.

Distantly, the bell tolls for the end of lunch. The others will be up here, soon, he realises, to collect their books for the afternoon.

Scrubbing the tears from his eyes with one hand, he packs away the books with an unusual ferocity with the other. Sixteen, people will tell you, is a delicate age, on the verge of life. They are right: the boy Charles Combeferre sees before him the awful prospect of becoming bitter, and sees how he himself might slide towards it inexorably, and trembles. He does not want to become that person. Not ever. But it grows harder and harder to believe that there is a reason for everything that happens; harder and harder to believe that the world is not cruel. And though he can promise himself that he will _try, _what scares him is the notion that one day, trying will not be enough.


	4. Chapter 4

The onset of October brings with it a stiffer, brisker chill in the air. At Oakham House, Mrs Bagshaw cooks up thick, brothy soups and hot stews which sit heavy in the stomach and make Jehan too drowsy to make sufficient effort with his studies in the evenings. There is bread, too, however – soft brown roundels of it – and this he takes to carefully secreting away, when he can, to give to Feuilly on a morning when he brings him more books or, as has happened with increasing frequency of late, slinks surreptitiously down to the servants' quarters just to talk.

The Prouvaires go through candles rapidly with the slow, sure arrival of longer nights. Jehan has to be especially cautious about taking them, now, and avers to say nothing to Feuilly of the extra trouble.

Days file by in a procession of comforting sameness. It would be easy, in this lull of routine; in the comfort of a warm escape from the outside chill, to forget or ignore the changes taking place elsewhere; the stormy precursor to war in the Crimea. The terse telegrams received by Lord Oakham over breakfast; the newspaper articles Enjolras peruses at length and with fervour. That is to say, it would be easy to forget, for many a boy of Jehan's age and circumstance, but he, surrounded as he is by those rare people who are always seeking to immerse themselves in the wider world, cannot forget, and this shaded, unknown future nags at him like a constant stomach-ache. He begins, in fact, to long for something to distract him from this feeling of unease, and it is only when several things begin to happen at once that he half wishes fo the return of that old sameness.

The first of these events takes place on a night when the air is still heavy from a day of ceaseless rain; rain so constant that, when he awakens to the sound of raised voices downstairs, he finds that he is surprised no longer to hear it. He lies on his back and stares upwards; the high ceiling is lost in darkness. A few moments go by before he realises what it is that has awakened him.

And then, of course, he hears it again. It is a low thrum of voices overlaid by the harsher tones of a man whose voice he at first does not recognise, so slurred and strident it is. For a moment, Jehan stays very still. Then, curious despite himself, and more than a little apprehensive, he draws back the blankets, swings his legs over the side of the bed and pads light-footed to the door, which since he was a very young boy has always been kept ajar at night time.

It is here, with the cold air eddying around his ankles, that he recognises the voice as that of his uncle.

"It's all gone!" Mister Bahorel all but bellows, his voice growing louder still. "All of it! Every last penny, and my fault!"

Jehan strains to make out the murmur of his mother's response, but if his uncle's voice is too loud, then Grace's is far too quiet. He wishes he had thought to wrap the blankets around him; the cold brings a dull ache in his chest.

"What will I tell them?" cries Mister Bahorel, and there is a great thud and a muffled cry of surprise from both of Jehan's parents.

You must understand, reader, that it is not, nor ever has been, in Jehan Prouvaire's nature to pry. Most people, however – and young people in particular – have their curiosities, and when piqued at this hour, still half tangled in the muddle of sleep, these become insatiable. Had Jehan not decided in this moment to quietly push open his door and steal out onto the broad landing, he knows he would not be able to catch the barest wink of sleep.

Through the spindles of the staircase the boy peers down. The figures below, illuminated in lantern-light, are yellowish and indistinct. Sitting at the foot of the stairs is his uncle, a round-shouldered bulk shadowed by the wall. Lord and Lady Oakham stand before him, close together, the downward slant of the light shading their eyes blackish. Somehow, Jehan thinks, they make an oddly macabre trio; if he were a painter such as Theodore Gericault, he might like to paint them that way, ranged in firelight.

"We'll lose everything," Mister Bahorel's voice is quieter, now, and ragged, as though he has shouted himself hoarse. "It is my fault, not Lucetta and George's. You must help us – please," he remembers to add at the last moment, and the desperation in his voice rises like something tangible.

There follows a very pointed sort of pause, in which Grace Prouvaire looks up at her husband, and then down at her brother-in-law. Then:

"I will give you what you need," says Lord Oakham at length, and Jehan has never heard his father sound so grave. "But as you said, it's for Lucetta and for George. They do not deserve this. You have been reckless and selfish far beyond the point where one can call it simply a mistake. And I must make this clear," he is silent for a moment before going on, as though to let the weight of his words sink in, "This is the last time I will help you. Do not come here asking for money again."

But this last, Jehan's uncle seems hardly to have heard. He lurches to his feet, stumbling in a ferocious overflow of feeling towards those who would now become his benefactors with a thickened cry of "Thank you! Thank you _both! _I'll repay you; know that I will!"

"Andrew," says Jehan's mother, so softly that he can hardly hear her, "Please."

"I shall have Lant see you home," Lord Oakham interposes with forced calm, "I hope that next time we see each other, it will be under better circumstances than these."

Jehan does not wait to hear any more. He is already backing away towards the door of his bedroom, his thoughts whirling dizzily. He has known for some time that his Aunt Lucetta and Uncle Andrew are in a difficult financial situation, but never has he stopped to suppose that they might lose everything they have. Does Cousin George know about this? Surely not; or, if he does, then he does a fine job of going about as though he doesn't care a straw about any of it. Either way, Jehan, who is supposed to know nothing of this himself, has no right to tell him.

His thoughts spin and buckle madly as he clambers back into bed, and it is a very long time before he finally falls asleep.

**-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-**

It is said that morning brings resolution; that the first rays of sunlight, however weak and watery they might be, hold some sort of power to dispel any fears the night brought with it. Jehan Prouvaire learns today that this is not the case. He is preoccupied as he readies himself for the school day, and almost forgets altogether that this morning he means to take a copy of the evening paper down to Feuilly, who lately has taken a specific interest in reading the news.

But remember he does, if belatedly, and half-rushes down the back-stairs, clattering more loudly than ever he has dared to before. His knock at the other boy's door is loud, too, and his breath saws raggedly in and out.

"Are you alright, Master P- Jehan?" is the first thing Feuilly asks, concern knitting his brow. Even now, upon occasion, he stumbles over Jehan's name, filled as he is with an inclination for deference that, Jehan has to suspect, is not so much inborn as in-beaten.

"Oh, yes," replies Jehan, far too quickly, "I've brought you the paper, though there's nothing you'll like in it. Everything's about the war. It makes me feel all odd."

Feuilly's eyebrows go up. "'Course it's about the war. That's why I want to read it." He lowers his voice, almost conspiratorially, but there is a fervent gleam in his green-brown eyes. "D'you know what I think? I think them Russians 'aven't got any business trampling all over people, I do. I think we've _got _to go to war, 'else who else will make them stop?"

"I-" Jehan's eyes drop to the paper in his hands, and then rise again to find Feuilly's face, solemn and unwavering. "Do you really think so?" he asks, finally, for want of something else to say. For he has heard Enjolras talk similarly – though in his case, it is mostly about duty and right – and surely, young though they are, they cannot both be wrong, Jehan does not want a war. He does not want his own countrymen – perhaps even men he knows – to die in some strange land. But what he wants and what is right, he knows, are not always the same thing.

Feuilly nods in answer to his question, and takes the proffered sheaf of newspaper, his eyes already scanning the front page eagerly.

"Well, then," says Jehan, with a strange reluctance to leave the dim, close servants' quarters, "I suppose I had better go. I'm quite late already."

Feuilly's answering glance and wave are distracted, and Jehan, as he is climbing the stairs, is so preoccupied with thoughts of the impending war and hopes that Feuilly will not be punished too often for dawdling today, that he scarcely notices the little, laboured shiver his breath makes with every upward step.

**-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0 o0o0o-**

"Enjolras has gone absolutely barking mad," Courfeyrac announces to a rather weary Jehan, the moment he claps eyes upon him. They are crossing the schoolyard, buffeted this way and that by a keen, damp wind. At Jehan's surprised and rather nonplussed expression, Courfeyrac presses on: "He's had a letter from Combeferre, you see. His sister, Amelia, has died, and his mother is in a very bad way about it. His father does not know what to do about it all, and – oh, you know what Combeferre is like – he's actually considering not coming back to school." Courfeyrac shakes his head emphatically, now striding along slightly ahead of Jehan, who has to hurry to catch up. "Of course, Enjolras isn't having any of that. He means to write to Combeferre's father directly and entreat him to – what was it? - talk some sense into him."

Jehan's eyes grow very wide. He has been in such a bother about the Bahorels and about his conversation with Feuilly, that he had quite forgotten about Combeferre and his sister.

"Will his father do that, do you think?" he asks, rather limply, and Courfeyrac lifts his shoulders in a shrug.

"I don't know, but – oh, look, there's Grantaire; he might know better than us what's going on." And he clips off at quite a pace towards Grantaire, with Jehan trailing as quickly as he can behind him.

They reach Grantaire just as they are about to enter the huge hall where they take their lunch, and Grantaire is more concerned with getting into the warmth than with answering them immediately. The have almost arrived at their table by the time he finally decides to say, by way of an answer:

"Oh, Enjolras is in the library, now, writing the letter. He intends to have it sent this evening. He was quite indignant about it all, as though it were all somehow Combeferre's father's fault." He gives a dry laugh, "Oh, you should have heard some of the things he was saying. I've never seen him so irritable over such a small thing."

Courfeyrac laughs, but Jehan breaks in, with quite unexpected indignation:

"It _isn't _a small thing. A girl is dead."

The pair of them look at him in mild surprise. "Well, yes," says Grantaire, more than a touch dryly, "But that's hardly the sort of thing Enjolras usually gets all hot and bothered about , is it?"

Courfeyrac nods his agreement. "No, he's not a bit interested in girls. It _is _odd."

Jehan, tired as he is, finds himself rather more irritable than usual. _Father would call them a pair of dunderheads, _he thinks, _can they really not see that Enjolras is only concerned for his friend? Why should that be so hard to believe? He helped me when he hardly even knew me. _"He isn't made of stone. Enjolras is not a god. He's a boy, just like any of us, only rather cleverer."

He does not realise he has spoken this last aloud until he feels Courfeyrac and Grantaire' eyes on him.

"Well," he mumbles, reluctant to back down and yet eager to, "It's true."

Courfeyrac looks as though he is battling the urge to laugh again. Grantaire is thunderstruck. Before either of them have a chance to make any sort of reply, however, the full, deep chiming of the bell, normally used to signal the end of lunch, makes them jump almost clear out of their seats. All at once, every eye in the hall is on the headmaster, ascending the dais at the end of the room.

The headmaster stands still and watches them all, eyes moving from table to table until every last student is silent. The silence has a pressing, insistent quality. Even Courfeyrac's expression, now, is serious.

The headmaster clears his throat with none of his usual portentousness. "My dear boys," he begins. He has never referred to any one of them as _dear _before today.

Jehan knows what he is going to tell them before the words leave him, but that does nothing to lessen the blow.

"We must find strength in each other in this difficult time; we must unite, for it is only as one that we can face what is ahead. Children, we are at war."


	5. Chapter 5

War. In the years afterwards, the boys would trade stories with various new acquaintances, weighing in on a distant frisson of shared horror. Jehan would remember Oakham School's grand hall; how silent it became. How all other thoughts – thoughts of Enjolras and his letter; thoughts of his aunt and uncle's seemingly dire fiscal plight – receded in the wake of this news.

War.

For Henry Feuilly, the recollection would be quite different. He, unlike Jehan, does not find out through any grand announcement. He is in the kitchen, fetching lye soap and a bucket, when one of the housemaids – a wispy sort of girl named Bess, who might be pretty were her large, light blue eyes not rather too far apart – comes bursting in, full tilt, with none of her usual decorous reserve.

"It's startin'!" she announces, and though her voice quavers, there is a certain amount of relish in it too, "Lord Oakham 'imself just got a telegram, 'e did. Britain's declared war, 'e said, on the Russians. That means it's startin'."

Feuilly, crouched beside an open cupboard, freezes in the act of moving a particularly large and cumbersome jar.

"We know what it means, Bess," Mrs Bagshawe's tart response is rather ruined by the definite tremor in her own voice. It seems that none among their number can speak without faltering. "We may not have the privilege of _changing her ladyship's sheets, _but we aren't imbeciles."

From his lowly vantage point, Feuilly, turning and craning his neck slightly, sees Bess' face colour.

"Aren't yer scared, Missus Bagshawe?" she asks, and the older woman purses her lips.

"_I _am," opines Nellie, rolling out a pie-crust, "All them men, goin' off to fight – I know it's all honourable and that, but it en't nice to think of. What d'ye reckon, Feuilly? We ought ter get a boy's opinion, en't we?"

Feuilly manages to still the clamour of his own thoughts just long enough to give a hasty and rather unconvincing reply of: "I haven't got an opinion", but Nellie, dizzy though the girl can appear upon occasion, is not decieved.

"'Course you 'ave," she tells him, "Everyone's got opinions, 'aven't they? Missus Bagshawe prolly don't care about the war, since she en't got a husband to go off an' fight, anyway."

Rather predictably, this does not please Mrs Bagshawe, who expostulates, her voice sharp: "You'd better not be using this as a chance to disrespect me, my girl. We may all be shocked, just now, but sure as anything I can scold you just as good now as I can any given Sunday."

Nellie stifles a giggle. "I wish I 'ad a gent to wait for while the war's on," she says. Then, jesting: "Aren't yer old enough to put on a uniform, Feuilly?"

Feuilly ponders this. He is not, of course, of the age to do any such thing. But supposing he _was... _Would he? Would he have the courage to- but it is not, he realises swift on the heels of that thought, so much about courage as about _why _they are fighting. Does Britain have any more right hankering after the Crimea – the "sick man of Europe", so says Russia; Feuilly has read as much in the papers, and it always gives _him _a sick twinge of something akin to disgust – than Russia or anywhere else for that matter? He is beginning to have a notion or two about freedom; it is too easy for those small, downtrodden countries to remind him forcibly of his time at Wellwood, with the schoolmasters and the other boys as a sort of proto-Russia and Britain. It is absurd, of course, and a tad melodramatic to boot, but the association sticks, somehow. Sometimes, one cannot help these things. And in any case, there is truth in it. Just last week, Feuilly had seen Lady Oakham shaking her head and shuddering exaggeratedly over some gypsies who were encamped on the Common, and he had been yearning to ask her why they bothered her so – they were, after all, just _people. _Surely, one could not place a black mark against an entire people. Bragg and Cloake had thought _all _the boys ignorant, but they had not been. And Feuilly, knowing this, cannot reconcile himself to the fact that any one person is inferior to another merely by dint of the set into which they have been born.

But, "'Ere, Feuilly," Nellie is saying, now, so loudly that Mrs Bagshawe gives her a quelling look. "Where's your 'ead, t'day? You afeared about this war, are yer?"

With a little start, he looks up. He shakes his head; it has not crossed his mind, in truth, to be afraid.

"Well, then," says Mrs Bagshawe, briskly, "You can be getting on with what you're doing, can't you? If you aren't busy being a silly goose like these girls here, there's no reason to dawdle, is there?"

And that is the end of that; change is announcing itself across the country like a thunderclap, and Feuilly must go back to his lye soap and rough cloth.

**-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0 o-**

In the ensuing weeks, the manor house is a sombre place. Lady Oakham, already of a rather delicate predisposition, is wont to take fright at the smallest things. She will not read the papers; she refuses, abjectly, to hear any talk of the war within her earshot. Increasingly often, she complains of a pain between her eyes and takes to her bed, drawing thick drapes on the world outside.

The change in his wife makes Lord Oakham more serious than ever. He is given to brooding, and Jehan finds that he is lucky to elicit even a few words out of him at table. With his parents so distant, the boy is lonely. And the lonelier he becomes, the more time he spends wandering from room to room, trying to catch Feuilly at some task or another so that they may steal a brief exchange of words.

Feuilly is reading _Henry V. _War is everywhere. The hallboy puzzles over Renaissance English, fumbling, frustrated, with the words. Jehan, from the doorway of the little room at the bottom of the house, watches him struggle and wishes he could help, but though he himself understands Shakespeare, he has no notion of how to teach it. Out of nowhere, he wishes Combeferre were here; he is far better at that sort of thing.

The Bahorels come for dinner again. Mister Bahorel is his usual genial self, but Lucetta is subdued and George surly. He drags his knife and fork across his plate until his mother and Lady Oakham give him a near-simultaneous glare. Dinner is a strained affair, and afterwards, the boys are sent outside to 'play' whilst their parents talk.

Out of doors, the air is beginning to be damp and chill. It is not quite dark, but soon will be. Jehan walks aimlessly beside his cousin. George Bahorel seems quite impervious to the cold, and Jehan, shivering slightly, envies him.

"Mother and Father are being absolutely beastly, you know," says George, presently, with considerable and unwarranted vitriol, "It isn't enough that they must uproot us and force me to become a _day pupil_; now Mother is cross because Father will have to _work._ What a stupid thing to be cross over, don't you think? I should like to work. It would be better than lounging about the house."

"Yes," says Jehan, realising to some surprise that he quite agrees with his cousin. "It _is _a silly thing to bother about. People ought to work, I think. My-" he stops, quite suddenly. He had been going to say 'My friend Feuilly works, and he's not any less respectable than your father; a good deal more, I should think, in fact'. Of all the foolish things to say! Notwithstanding the fact that George might be quite insulted at the idea of a servant boy being more respectable than his father – what would George think if he knew Jehan was friends with a servant at all? But perhaps he wouldn't mind; perhaps-

And there is that old, increasingly familiar thought, again. _You are a coward, Jehan Prouvaire. A low, spineless coward._ And so, without giving himself a chance to think, he cuts off this litany the best way he knows how. He turns to Cousin George and says:

"Come with me. I want to introduce you to someone."

**-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0-**

Feuilly is blacking Lord Oakham's boots when Jehan appears with a boy he has never spoken to, but recognises as Lord and Lady Oakham's nephew. The stranger has Jehan's coppery hair, though of a slightly darker hue, but that is where the similarity between the two boys ends. George Bahorel is swarthy and stocky. His eyes bear the sort of glint that, back at Wellwood, would have made Feuilly intensely wary, and does so now, too. Jehan, if he notes Feuilly's discomfiture or Bahorel's bewilderment, does not acknowledge it.

"Feuilly," he says, presently, "This is my cousin, George Bahorel. George, this is Henry Feuilly. He's my friend."

George Bahorel's air of confusion vanishes. With the same overblown, magnanimous manner as his father, he claps Feuilly on the back – he has just risen hastily to his feet – with such force that Feuilly almost stumbles.

"Good to meet you," he says, "I wish our servants were worth making friends with. Most of them are a tedious lot, though the cook's a card. She swears like a trooper."

Feuilly lets out a short laugh despite himself. It occurs to him that he might return this bit of information with something about the Prouvaires' own cook, but he decides against it – what will Jehan think of him? - and stands there awkwardly, silence colouring his cheeks pink.

"You don't say much, do you?" Bahorel presses on with a coarse laugh of his own, and Feuilly responds with a non-committal shrug of his narrow shoulders.

"I talk lots," he says with an air of candid, unthinking diffidence, "Sometimes."

_This is hopeless, _he thinks, _I never could get along with anyone my age, except for Jehan._

"Feuilly ought to go to Oakham School," Jehan rattles, "He reads so many books, you know. I bring them to him from Father's library. And the papers, too."

"Oh," Bahorel looks thoroughly uninterested, which does little to surprise Feuilly. "What d'you think to this war, then?"

George Bahorel is good at making missteps, thinks Feuilly, seeing the strained expression on Jehan's face. But Feuilly is as bound to answer questions as he is to ask them, no matter the trouble it might lead him into.

"I think it's wrong," the words fly out of him quite unchecked, "I think we ought to go to war with Russia to free the Crimea from them; not to take it for ourselves."

Bahorel snorts. "I want to fight," he says, "I'd go out and fight tomorrow, if I could."

Jehan's eyes go quite round. "Would you really?"

"I bloody well would. I wonder what Mother would say, then. I expect she'd be proud. She'd have to be, wouldn't she? Where're your parents, Feuilly? Are they servants, too? I suppose they're farmers, are they?"

Feuilly's rejoinder is quietly blunt. "My parents are dead," he says, and Bahorel has the good grace to look slightly abashed.

"Bloody _hell_," he says, "That's rotten. I'd say I'm sorry, but I think that's a stupid saying. Nevertheless, it's awful luck. Are you alright?"

Feuilly cannot help laughing at the absurdity of this question. "Of course I'm alright," he says, caught quite off-guard, "I never knew them. My grandmother looked after me until I was eight. Then she got sick and the beadle bore me off to Wellwood."

"Wellwood? They give you pig slop instead of porridge, there, I heard!"

"Whoever told you that?" asks Feuilly. "They don't. I bet Mister Bragg would wish he'd thought of that, if he heard, though."

"It can't be much worse than being a _day _boy at Oakham, can it? I get into all sorts of fights; can't keep my mouth shut when people poke fun at me for it, you see."

And then – and then – oh, how he wishes he knew when to be quiet! - the words are tumbling out of Feuilly with unrestrained vehemence. He quite forgets all he has taught himself on how to speak 'properly'. "There're worse things than getting into fights, yer know. At Wellwood yer get beaten in front of the other boys all the time, an' yer en't allowed to even look at the Misters the wrong way else you get called disrespectful, an' the other boys are – are – they get yer into trouble all the time 'cause if it's you, well at least it en't them – an' I'd rather be a _day boy _at yer posh school any day than go back there! I rather be a servant 'ere; Missus Bagshawe scolds but Nellie an' Bess are kind an' so's Jehan. D'you know I thought 'e was going to hit me that first day when I dropped the book in Lord Oakham's library. Yer don't know the first thing about what it's like at a place like that, and it en't something to joke about, neither!"

Bahorel stares at him wordlessly for a moment, astonishment mingling with something almost akin to respect.

"Well, if I'd known you at Wellwood," he says, "I'd have floored those other boys for you, and the schoolmasters too, you watch. Wouldn't I, Jehan?"

Jehan nods, but he cannot help bursting into laughter. Feuilly laughs too, and then – grudgingly at first – Bahorel joins in. The three of them laugh helplessly; laugh until their sides ache. The pain shoots up between Feuilly's ribs and it is the first time he has ever known pain to come from something good. It gives him a curious feeling; one he cannot quite put into words, but which feels suspiciously like contentment.

**-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0 o0o0o-**

The following day, Combeferre returns to Oakham School.

This is quite out of the blue, for Enjolras had never received any response to the long and coolly voluble letter he had sent to his father. He arrives when the rest of them are just sitting down to lunch in the hall; Courfeyrac spots him first, jumping up to point him out amid the throng of students.

"Look!" he cries, "It's Combeferre! He _has _come back. I knew he would. Didn't I say he would, Jehan? Didn't I?"

Jehan's brief "Yes" is rather distracted; he is watching Combeferre approach them, and the sight of him does not bring quite the same joy as it give Courfeyrac, for Combeferre's time at home has wrought quite a change in him. In some respects, this change is easy to place; he is thinner – his face, now, is almost gaunt – and as he draws near them, Jehan picks out sleepless shadows beneath his eyes. There is, too, a decidedly unkempt air about him. But none of these things are what really disconcerts Jehan. It is the fact that his friend seems somehow fundamentally _smaller _in every sense of the word; that there is a new dullness in his astute, thoughtful eyes.

"He is changed," he says to Enjolras in a quiet voice, and Enjolras nods grimly.

"Your father received my letter, then?" Enjolras asks as Combeferre takes his place on the bench opposite him, and the other boy nods.

"I didn't know about it, at first," he replies, "In fact, I found it quite by chance. Afterwards, I asked Father whether he thought I ought to come back here."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing of consequence. I'm back, now, in any case. Have you seen the papers, today? This Mister Howard Russell is creating quite a stir, isn't he?"

And he and Enjolras promptly descend into a discussion about war journalism. Jehan tries not to watch them too intently, but it is difficult to keep his attention on what they are saying when the look in his friend's washed-out grey eyes reminds him so forcibly of the look that Feuilly had worn in his own hazel ones when he had first arrived from Wellwood.


End file.
